Why does Store Broker (wshost.exe) keep killing my CPU?

Anonymous
2014-01-24T23:58:25+00:00

I've got a new Windows 8 machine and, for some reason, the Store Broker keeps pegging my CPU. It seems to pop up every time I do anything with the Windows Store (makes sense) or use some Metro apps (also makes sense). However, for some reason, this process takes up 33% of my CPU and never lets go of it once it starts. This causes the machine to get hot which causes the fan to come on and the combination drastically reduces my battery life (from 11hrs to 3).

Aside from frequently checking for and killing this app, is there anything else I can do about this? Is anyone else having this problem? Is it a misconfiguration on my end? I'm running this on a new Surface Pro 2.

Thanks!

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2014-03-19T01:17:01+00:00

I SOLVED this. At least for myself. It's been a 3-day journey. Argh!

The upshot is this:

Kill Store and Store Broker from task list.

Rename the Cache folder to CacheOld at:

C:\Users(Your User Account)\AppData\Local\Packages\WinStore_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState

(Your WinStore_gobblygook might be a different bunch of gobbblygook)

Create an empty folder called Cache.

Solved! For me anyway.

Enjoy,

Ron

PS

I have been at this for days. I've read every article and post everywhere. I have updated graphics drivers, set date and time, run wsreset, sfc /scannnow, created new user account (store did work for new account), app troubleshooter, etc, etc, etc...

Today I just started digging around and looking at dates. I don't have log files to back this up but I believe I broke Store with CCleaner. I'm not sure exactly when the Store broke so this is a best guess but it makes some sense since Ccleaner does clean Store cache.

I also recently installed Tor Browser but my gut is that that was totally unrelated.

I might create a sandbox user and try to break Store with Ccleaner to confirm. But honestly I am tired of this little adventure.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-07-07T02:22:41+00:00

    Interesting, but I haven't seen any official MS reply that shows how to fix the problem, even after people submitted log files, etc.  It took a savvy user or two to fix it for everybody.  So Davian, your comment about "learning to use an os before complaining about it" makes no sense at all.  Does "learning how to use an os" include learning how to fix issues (created by MS) before MS fixes them?  Just wondered.

    I have a fairly new HP Envy TS17 laptop and noticed the fan had been running more lately than it ever did.  As in it was running constantly and running hot.  So I set out to see what was causing the problem and it was store broker, just like everybody else here.  I killed the process and lo and behold, my fan speed dropped to nearly nothing.  Then I landed here while looking for a "real" solution. 

    When something this expensive starts malfunctioning and you discover it's a problem with a recent update (which it had to have been since I didn't have the problem from the start), then I (and everybody else) have a right to complain.  It has NOTHING to do with not knowing how to use the operating system and to imply that it does is just ignorant.  I'll say it again: where's the official MS "fix" that was promised to be posted to this forum by an MS tech?  I'm seeing solid fixes from 2 users but nothing from MS to confirm anything.  Updates are supposed to FIX problems, not CREATE them and you should be able to trust each and every one of them. 

    Thanks to the guys who posted the fixes for this, I appreciate it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-06-21T01:46:38+00:00

    Typoll,

    Thanks for the fix.

    Ping

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-06-14T09:17:16+00:00

    Hey i started having this issue recently(yesterday) store broker eating up all my CPU(90-99%) so i came straight to this site and started going through post and this one from the MS engineer worked for me.

    Since i use store and win8 apps a lot its was really bugging me but after running this command store popped up store broker didn't. I rebooted and opened store, store broker did appear but it went to 2% and when i closed store it went straight back to 0% so i just wanna says thanks for helping fix this problem.

    PS: People i suggest you sit down and take the time to learn how to use an os before complaining about it. for me win8/win8.1.1 is a great os it all the accessibility of win7 and looks better too in fact i've had the PC for 7 months now and this is the first problem i've had.

    Go Microsoft.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-06-10T20:38:52+00:00

    Did you read the fix??

    From the task manager, stop the Store and Store Broker.  Copy and paste the following to Notepad and save to the desktop as Fixme.bat....

    %HOMEDRIVE%

    cd %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages

    for /D %%F in (winstore*.*) do cd %%F

    cd LocalState

    ren Cache CacheOld 

    md Cache

    Double-click the Fixme desktop file.  Fixed.

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